Canada: Up hill and down stairs

I CHEATED only once: took the funicular, that is, up the cliff from the Lower Town to the Upper Town of Quebec City. Otherwise I kept to my resolve and always climbed one of the steep and muscle-stretching staircases.

There are 28 of them, one known as Breakneck Stairs. Possibly I climbed 300 or so steps in response to a hitherto unsuspected puritanical streak, atoning for the exquisite dinner of the evening before. More likely, I was out for an appetite-sharpener for the lunch or supper ahead.

From the top of Cape Diamond, on the breezy boardwalk in front of the Château Frontenac Hotel, you survey a classic panorama: the steeply pitched roofs and old greystone houses of the Lower Town bordering the Saint Lawrence river. In summer, sailing boats pattern the blue water; in winter unruly ice floes swirl in the currents. To the south, across the ferry-ploughed strait, the countryside of Chaudière-Appalaches stretches to the United States.

But standing up here, a tiny point on the clifftop, you fit in to one of Canada's grand city spectacles. The port and Lower Town, the cliff and terraces and fortifications, have their apex in the distinctive spearpoint turrets, dormers and green copper roof of the Frontenac. This magisterial château, seemingly stolen from the Loire, was opened in 1893 and completed in 1923, a jewel of the all-conquering Canadian Pacific Railway.

As Quebec's visual emblem it forms part of the striking picture that awed arriving immigrants and stirred Canadian soldiers returning from war. It is all of a piece with the town founded by Samuel de Champlain in 1608 as a fur-trading base. It then became the cradle of New France. It is now the only fortified city in North America. The earlier ramparts testify to justifiable French fears of British ambitions; and the massive citadel speaks of British anxiety about an American invasion.

Since the city has such grace, such handsome and fitting buildings, you wonder at the insensitivity of planners who permitted the brutalist government and hotel towers that rear above the comely mansions beside the Plains of Abraham, scene of the battle between the French and General James Wolfe that won the city for the British in 1759. To the pillory with them.

A feeling for history and place helps you to enjoy Quebec. A symbolic city for French Canadians, it leans proudly upon its antiquity. It is also charming, stylish, jolly and modern, a city of just the right size, of a comfortable human scale. It has 170,000 people, though the population of greater Quebec is 650,000.

I came up from Montreal by train and stayed in the Auberge Saint-Antoine in the Lower Town, close to the river quays. The hotel is a beautifully restored old warehouse with a lobby arrangement of fireplace and comfy chairs. I had brunch, a typical Canadian furnace-stoker of pancakes, ham, sausage and maple syrup, in the nearby Le Péché Vénial, and then went walking.

The Lower Town is a district of squares and cobbled streets, little shops, bistros and galleries. The Petit-Champlain, where once immigrants lived in squalor, is today a dinky boutiqueville. Here you might note that Quebec retains the old French "Tabagie" for tobacconist, while Montreal, in its modern way, says "Tabac".

The cliff stairs, incidentally, were originally constructed by shipbuilders to enable their men to get to work.

Following in their footsteps, I climbed to the top and worked my way through the streets of Old Quebec to the monument inscribed with the names of generals Wolfe and Montcalm, both fatally wounded in the battle for the city. I walked around the citadel and over the Plains of Abraham, where the story of the fighting was brilliantly illustrated in the battlefield museum.

Some of the early views of Quebec displayed in the museum were painted by James Cockburn, a British officer who served here between 1826 and 1832. You meet him again in Artillery Park, the military buildings in Old Quebec. In the former officers' mess, the staff stage the English Tea Ceremony, especially popular with Americans, an hour-long re-enactment in period dress of a Cockburn tea party.

Quebec City has many excellent restaurants. Choosing one is the only problem. My first dinner, trout and mackerel tart, prawns, sea bass and tarte citron, in Le Marie-Clarisse, gave me a good start. And next day, when I drove out to the lovely countryside of the Ile d'Orléans, I lunched memorably at Le Canard Huppé. Back in town that evening I had a bistro supper near the hotel at the lively Café du Monde, where the boss thoughtfully provides a stack of newspapers and magazines for solo diners.

Next day I met Gaétan. In a flurry of snow, I thought, he might be mistaken for a bear. A certain shagginess and a Michelin man's bulky cold-weather gear completed an ursine silhouette. Bears, though, don't grin like Gaétan. "Welcome," he said, "to your day of adventure." Adventure is Gaétan Michaud's business. He long ago decided that he wanted to spend his life roaming the wildernesses of Quebec and he started an expedition firm at Portneuf among the forests and lakes west of Quebec City.

He introduced me to my all-terrain vehicle, variously known as the ATV, quad bike or four-wheeled motorcycle. I had only seen one once before, driven up a Welsh mountainside by a shepherd working his flock. Gaétan showed me the controls of the chunky red machine. Alain Parenteau, Gaétan's general manager, fitted me with protective clothing and a helmet and, with Gaétan leading the way, the three of us headed along a trail into the forest.

It took a while to gain confidence, but I never stopped being astonished at what the quad bike could do. Its four-wheel drive and balloon tyres carried it easily up steep slopes, rocky water courses, over fallen logs and through thick mud.

It was a Boy's Own adventure, a long and grand day out in the forests of pine and birch, buzzing along winding trails beside lakes and fast-rushing rivers. We had a picnic lunch and a warm-up by the iron stove of a sugar cabin, where maple sap is rendered into syrup, and rode back into the forest.

I had picked the wrong time for skiing at Mont-Sainte-Anne, a half-hour drive from the city, a resort between the mountains and the river where there are facilities for pretty well anything involving snow. But it's a year-round resort, too, and André Bergeron, the chief ski instructor, a man as fat-free as a whip, took me mountain-biking on the forest slopes.

"In mountain-biking the first three months are the worst," he said cheerfully. "I won't pretend: it is really hard. But after that . . . pure joy."

I was a mud pie when I finished, but after a bath I scampered up the steps to the Château Frontenac for an aperitif at the circular bar. It must be one of the best bar views in the world. Back down the stairs I attended a concert at la Maison de la Chanson, then had supper nearby at Le Lapin Sauté.

Although I was running out of time, I squeezed a few hours on the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence, driving through the villages of Chaudière-Appalaches. In the maritime museum at L'Islet-sur-Mer I met Philippe Beaudry, who showed me some of the relics he recovered in more than 600 dives on the wreck of the Empress of Ireland, sunk in the Saint Lawrence in May of 1914 with the loss of 1,012 lives. It was the second greatest maritime disaster after the Titanic. Yet, as Mr Beaudry said, it is largely forgotten.

I never made up my mind about one enduring question, whether the view of the river from Quebec City is better than the view of Quebec City from the river. Of one thing, though, I was certain. Thanks to the spirit of the stairs I left Quebec fitter, not fatter; and possibly with shapelier calves.

Trevor Fishlock's trip was organised by Tailor Made Travel (01386 712050). Return flights with Canadian Airlines booked through the company begin at £286; costs per night start at £39 at the Auberge Saint-Antoine and £30 at the Château Frontenac (assuming two people sharing). Tailor Made Travel can also arrange activity days, such as mountain biking and, in season, ice climbing. For further information, contact Destination Quebec (0990 561705).